485. Pragmatic flesh, 6

(Myls)

We flew mostly south for a while straight, above and beyond a wide desert.

Blume keeps saying that Snake is weak and tired. All I see is a huge monster, bigger than anything that ever lived on Earth, and that is also able to fly for days without rest. It’s unreal. Snake defies all I know.

Though at the end, I too could notice a little that the flight was getting difficult. It was less steady, showing signs of exhaustion.

Snake followed us in the middle of a desert. I can see that thing being hungry. So we’re looking for a forest even if it means deviating from our first goal.

We finally found woods, and Snake rushed to it.

Actually, it rushed toward a lake a little further.

Blume spread her back limbs and held me. Her vegetal wings allowed us to glide toward the lake for a softer landing, against staying on top of Snake.

Snake almost crashed in a wide ruckus.

Her head dove into the lake to drink it.

Meanwhile, Blume and I swam to the shore after falling in.

~

One hour later, Blume had recovered the motorcycle we had secured on top.

We left Snake there, as she began to eat the forest methodically.

We’ll leave her to rest and eat as she please.

And for that we need to head a little further away, because the magenta sunrise is about to happen. We believe it’s still aimed at us first of all, so we’ll bring it away from Snake.

Therefore we ride cautiously away, through the uneven woods until we find a dead city where we’ll be able to hide and fight.

The one city we find is a putrid one unfortunately. An everlasting toxic cloud covers the city life fog.

It’s one of the cities that died on the white day.

I don’t have a gasmask with me to go in.

Blume has another solution.

She tells me to wait. And then she disappears into the yellow mists.

I wait for hours outside, getting worried.

And then I shiver. The magenta sunrise has begun. I can feel it.

And I’m stuck at the entrance of the city. I’m getting scared. What is Blume doing? I don’t have time to wait anymore!

I’m about to climb back on the motorcycle to find a hole somewhere else.

But then I feel the wind. An abnormal wind. And I see the flows of air changing.

I witness the mists of the city suddenly flowing away and receding, along with clouds of dust, toward some place where they gather inside the middle of the city.

What did she do?

I can ride on the empty and open streets. Blume opened the way somehow. I go in.

I ride for a few minutes after the receding toxic mists. It’s surreal.

What’s sadly less surreal is to witness a demon doing something unnatural.

Here I see the weird giant plant or flowery thing she’s become, vacuuming and absorbing the mists, seemingly into herself.

With the distance, she looks more like one of these south-american cacti that have many thin and sharp leaves. Gigantic, oddly coloured, with thin and dented leaves spreading around like rays of an explosion.

I know on the other side of that thing eating the mists still remains a roughly human looking body. But from where I’m coming, all I see is something otherworldly and ominous looking.

She swallowed everything, filtering and rejecting the air so fast that it formed a small tornado above her.

When I reach out to her, new limbs have grown along the back of her body.

Her human silhouette has turned all black, absolutely black from head to toes as she turns around.

I unwillingly get my hand close to my handgun, by reflex.

Her skin tones reappear. She tells me it’s alright.

We head toward the biggest building in sight right after.

~

M - You’re full of surprises.

B - I can improvise a few tricks. Even if they’re mostly things I’m not eager to do normally.

M - Why are you growing your body that weirdly though?

B - It’s easier for me to control. If we didn’t need to be on the run, I would be taking real roots somewhere.

M - You really are a flower demon at heart...

B - Blume means flower. I chose my name for a reason.

I didn’t know that. Another dead language probably.

We’re watching the skies now, for either the downpour, or another sort of calamity.

No rain this time either.

Another Calamity falling to Earth with flaming wings like before.

Just one.

Blume was climbing to the roof shortly. I was getting myself ready behind a good fireproof cover with the rifle.

The angelic looking calamity, falling within a fiery orb flew toward us after a quick deceleration. The flames disappeared, revealing her glowing self.

Acidic shit. I took aim at her, even if the radiating light hurts my eyes.

She stood at a good distance, staying still in mid air, her wings just as static as her.

Why does she has wings if she flies somehow without them?

That’s another form of monstrosity...

Another insult to nature as it always has been on this planet. Piece of shit.

I shoot. I hit.

Her belly is pierced and bleeding profusely .

She doesn’t seem to care.

Her hands begin to glow, enough to blind me cleanly despite the distance.

She throws by hands something in my direction.

All I see is the light blinding me, and a sensation of death looming over me suddenly.

I jumped behind my cover before the crash.

Whatever she threw at me, it melted a few metres wide of concrete and metals. The air is hot from the molten stone now, burning my nostrils.

Had I not jumped, there would be nothing of me left.

I’m trying to calm myself down as I’m slightly panicking and trembling. Death just brushed my hair.

I hear different noises that aren’t just my heart going mad. I take that as a chance to escape and run further away for my life.

~

A few levels below in that building, I see their crash.

Blume must have been caught and they fell together.

I hear screams. I rush to an opening by the wall to take aim below.

Blume is screaming in pain as the light dissolves her, but she’s winning this.

The calamity is shred to bloody chunks by the numerous limbs and brambles that Blume has.

The light vanishes.

Blume’s human shape is again spattered with holes that go through entirely.

But her overall body is much bigger, and I begin to realise that the human looking shape is slowly turning into a decoy, rather than remaining her true self.

She’s the whole thing. The human shape is becoming like a mere puppet or figurehead of some sort, for the bigger amorphous and floral body she’s growing behind.

She’s looking at me, and the human looking puppet’s head has a smile for me, with what’s left of her face. I have another shiver, feeling uneasy.

She winks. I’m startled again. Then I sigh.

Don’t trust your eyes she says... Easier said than done when your friend is a monster.

But now I must admit that the more I think about it, the more I realised I’m amused by her sense of humour.

~